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Disability (In)Justice explores how disability is central to practices of criminalization in Canada. Weaving together interdisciplinary scholarship across the fields of criminology, disability studies, law, and socio-legal studies, this edited collection will examine disability in relation to various agencies and aspects of the criminal justice system, including surveillance and policing, sentencing and the courts, prisons and other carceral spaces, and alternatives to confinement.

Situated as an upper-level undergraduate course reader to be published by a Canadian university press, this collection will be comprised of chapters by subject-area experts, organized into three thematic sections: (1) Practices of Criminalization; (2) The Justice System; and (3) Alternative Approaches. Chapters will address how disability intersects with race, class, gender, and/or sexuality to perpetuate oppression and discrimination within the criminal justice system, with particular attention to ways forward for disability justice. As most research on disability and criminal justice focuses on issues related to mental health and/or intellectual disabilities, we are especially interested to engage submissions that consider a broad range of disabilities.

We are soliciting chapters that fit in one of the three thematic sections on the following topics:

Histories of social control, eugenics, and the sterilization of disabled people in Canada;

Surveillance of disabled people by criminal justice agents and agencies;

Critiques of criminalization from a disability rights or critical disability perspective, looking specifically at sex work, drug use, or other related topics;

Disabled peoples’ access to accommodations within the criminal justice system, for example in the courts or in prisons;

Criminalization of disabled people in relation to neoliberal policies or practices;

De-policing strategies and alternatives to incarceration, including prison abolition, as a form of disability activism;

Disability justice in practice.

Confirmed contributors include:

- Tobin LeBlanc Haley, Ethel Louise Armstrong Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University, writing on how transinstitutionalization is being experienced within and across the Mad, Deaf, and Disability communities.

- Richard Jochelson, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba, and Michelle Bertrand, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg, writing on disability and jury representativeness;

- Ravi Malhotra, Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa, writing on assisted suicide/dying;

- Alexander McClelland, doctoral student with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University, writing on the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, exposure, and transmission;

- Alok Mukherjee, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University and former Chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, writing on mental health and policing;

If you are interested in contributing, please send a preliminary chapter title, 300-500 word chapter abstract, and a 100 word author bio to kellyfritsch@gmail.com by March 1, 2018.

Full chapter drafts of approximately 6,000-8,000 words will be due January 15, 2019.

About the Editors

Kelly Fritsch is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Women & Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto. As of July 2018, Fritsch will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. Her research broadly engages crip, queer, and feminist theory to explore the politics of disability, health, technology, risk, and accessibility. Fritsch is co-editor of Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle (AK Press, 2016 with Clare O’Connor and AK Thompson).

Jeffrey Monaghan is an Assistant Professor at Carleton’s Institute for Criminology and Criminal Justice. He is author of Security Aid: Canada and the Development Regime of Security (University of Toronto Press, 2017) and Policing Indigenous Movements: Dissent and the Security State (Fernwood, 2018 with Andrew Crosby). His research examines practices of security governance, policing, and surveillance.

Emily van der Meulen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology at Ryerson University. She conducts participatory research in the areas of critical and feminist criminology, socio-legal studies, prison harm reduction, and surveillance studies. She is (co-)editor of five books, including Red Light Labour:Sex Work Regulation, Agency, and Resistance (University of British Columbia Press, 2018 with Elya M. Durisin and Chris Bruckert), and Expanding the Gaze: Gender and the Politics of Surveillance (University of Toronto Press, 2016 with Robert Heynen).